“Can the corporal read?” Inos asked. Oopari was a pleasant young man. He and his men would doubtless do a good job of protecting her on the voyage, but she could not imagine him reading.
“No,” said Mother Unonini. “But he has been rehearsed. You, Inosolan, will speak to the God of Virginity, and—”
“No!”
Inos had surprised herself as much as the others. There was a shocked silence and the two ladies both colored.
“Inos!” Aunt Kade breathed. “Surely—”
“Oh, of course not!” said Inos, aghast. “That’s not what I meant!” She was certain she had gone pinker than both of them now. She looked to the chaplain. “I want to speak to the God who appeared to us that day. They are obviously looking after me. Well, are interested…”
Mother Unonini compressed her lips. “Yes, I agree that it would be appropriate, but we don’t know who They were. I should have asked, of course . . . ”
There was an awkward pause.
“Well,” Inos said brashly, “then we shall have to think of a name. They told me to try harder, so the God of Good Intentions, perhaps?”
Mother Unonini looked doubtful. “I’m not sure that there is one. I should have to look at the list. I mean, They all believe in good intentions—the good Gods, of course.”
“Religion is so difficult!” Aunt Kade remarked, studying her paper again. “Why can’t Inos just ask for `the God I saw here in the chapel’? They would know, wouldn’t They? Is this word‘devote’ or `devout’?”
“ `Denote,’” Mother Unonini said. “Yes, that is a good idea. And she can ask for help in trying harder.”
“Trying what harder?” a voice asked, and there was the king in the doorway, looking very grand in a long scarlet robe trimmed with ermine. It brought with it a scent of the cedar chest in which it snoozed away the centuries. Inos smiled at him and turned around before he could ask her to.
“Very nice! Charming!” He was carrying his crown under his arm. He did not look very well. He had been suffering from indigestion a lot lately, and the whites of his eyes had a nasty yellow tinge to them. “Trying what harder?” he repeated. Mother Unonini explained and he nodded gravely.
Aunt Kade was studying her brother with care. “Kondoral will be saying the prayer for the palace and those who live in it?”
“Of course!” The king chuckled quietly. “We couldn’t teach him a new prayer at his age, and we can’t stop him saying it.”
“And I,” Mother Unonini proclaimed proudly, “will invoke the God of Wedlock to find a good husband for the princess.” She flinched under a royal frown.
“I think perhaps that would not be in the best of taste, Mother. It sounds rather predatory. After all, the purpose of her visit to our ducal cousin is merely to experience courtly life and complete her education. Husbands can wait.”
Unonini looked flustered and Inos felt a sudden wash of relief. Both her father and Aunt Kade has insisted she was not being sent off to find a husband, merely to learn deportment, but she still secretly dreaded that matchmaking was behind it all. This sounded like a very firm denial, though, being made to the chaplain, and hence indirectly to the Gods. Perhaps her father was reassuring her. She must find time for another private talk before they sailed.
“Oh!” Mother Unonini was at a loss now. “Then which God should I speak to?”
“You could take the God of Virginity,” Aunt Kade suggested.
King Holindarn of Krasnegar caught his daughter’s eye momentarily, blinked a couple of times, then turned hastily away. Inos stared back blankly. Certainly that remark of Kade’s could be taken in a very catty way . . . but surely he had not thought that Kade had meant it like that? Anyone else . . .
But not Kade.
The service in the dank, dark chapel was horrible. Silk was not warm enough. Inos shivered the whole time. No Gods appeared. The drive down to the harbor was worse. She tried to smile and wave to the politely cheering crowds while rain splashed into the open carriage. Her stupid, stupid hat wanted to blow off all the time.
All this pomp had been Aunt Kade’s idea. She had talked the king into it.
The farewell on the dock was the worst of all, saying formal good-byes to the notables of the town, being polite, smiling when she wanted to weep. None of her own friends was there. They were working in the castle, or out on the hills: Lin and Ido and Kel . . .
And a young man with gray eyes and a big jaw. A young man stupid enough to drive a wagon through the sea itself when he thought it was his duty.
She blinked. The rain must be getting in her eyes, even although Ula was standing behind her holding a leather umbrella. Aunt Kade was being impossible, chatting with everyone, taking ages.
The captain badly needed a bath, but she was glad when he interrupted all those interminable polite farewells to announce that they were going to miss the tide if they did not go soon. His ship was even dirtier than he was. And it was so tiny! Inos tried to hold her gown off the grubby deck and tried to hold her breath in that revolting—
“What is that stink?” she demanded in horror. A month of this?
“Bilge!” Aunt Kade positively chuckled. “Try not to get your gown dirty, dear.”
“Dirty?” Inos protested. “We’ll all be pig litter in five minutes. “
“That’s why we brought old clothes for the voyage, dear.”
Then she was being helped—none too gently—down a ladder and into a black and vile hold. The cabin . . . These were her quarters? A closet! She pulled off the hat and she still could barely stand upright. “This is my cabin?” she wailed at her aunt. “I have to live for weeks in this?”
“Our cabin, dear. And we have two trunks coming, remember. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”
Then her father was there, also, and those could not be raindrops in her eyes now and she must not upset him by weeping. “Safe voyage, my darling.” His voice was gruff.
She tried to smile. “This is exciting.”
He nodded. “It will seem strange, but Kade will take good care of you. I hope old Krasnegar does not seem too horribly small and bleak when you return. ”
She swallowed a lump in her throat and it was still there. She had things she wanted to ask him, things she should have asked long since and had not wanted to, and now there was no time.
“Father?” Then she blurted it out. “You truly don’t want me to marry Angilki, do you?”
They were so cramped in that odious little cabin that he hardly had to move in order to put his arms around her and hug her tight.
“No, of course not! I’ve told you—it might cause all kinds of trouble with Nordland if you did.”
Relief! The Gods were not as cruel as she had feared.
“But keep your eyes open,” he said.
“For what?” she asked, and the ermine collar was tickling,her nose.
He laughed softly. “For some handsome young man of good family. Preferably a younger son, and certainly one with some brains and tact. One who pleases you. One who would be willing to live in this wild, far-off country at your side and help you keep Krasnegar out of the clutches of Nordland and Impire both.” She looked up and the laugh was not in his eyes. Even in the bad light she could see the yellow. He looked ill!
“Your Majesty!” the captain said urgently from outside the door.
“Tides do not wait for kings, my darling.” Then he was gone. She was horribly aware of Aunt Kade standing there and she wanted to be alone.
“We can go back up on deck and wave, if you want,” Aunt Kade said quietly.
“There was so much I wanted to say!” Inos was very much afraid she was about to weep. “And I couldn’t say it because there was no time. All those formalities!”
“That’s why we have them, dear.” Kade patted Inos’s arm. “They keep us behaving like royalty.”
4
Southward lay the hills. On the hills were the herds, and therefore the herders.
Herding was lonely work and usually dull. The cattle and the horses were the first to return to the land in the spring, as soon as the winter hills began to molt into brown. Rack-boned and staggering, they were driven across the causeway and then by gentle stages up to the higher slopes to join as many of the sheep as had survived. There they prospered mightily. They grew fat and sleek and produced young—and also began to develop independence of mind. In particular, they took to hankering after the hayfields and crops. Much of the herdsmen’s time was spent in keeping the livestock away from the farming. Cattle especially were stubborn creatures that could not see why they must graze the scanty grass of the uplands when the valley bottoms were more lush. Undiscouraged, ever hopeful and bovinely stupid, they would spend all day circling around, looking for a new approach. A few stout fences would have made life simpler for the herders, but in Krasnegar the cost of lumber made fences unthinkable. So there were no fences and the dreary contest continued, day after day, year in and year out.